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Monday, February 13, 2012

Today I want to talk about expectations. What is realistic and what is just fantasy. There are weight training programs and equipment out there that make outrageous guarantees claiming to gain 20-50lbs of muscle in an insanely short time like 12 weeks. There is also some insane before and after pictures of people doing different programs. While in reality one can only expect to put on 5-30lbs at most of Lean Body Mass(LBM) in a year. Now there are many different factors that go into how much LBM someone can gain, but mainly genetics, age and lifting experience.

So what is there to believe first let’s look at some different claims and before and after pictures.

Here we have three pictures I’ve found on the internet with a simple Google search. Now granted all of these results could very well be from their respected programs. I'm just analyzing them as to what could be a possibility.

So we have Picture one. This picture is probably legit, but here's the thing, all that was done is a drop in body fat %(BF%). He dropped his body fat below to probably under 10% and just finished working and is flexing this makes it magically look like in 4 weeks he put on a ton of muscle when in reality his lean body mass (LBM) probably stayed about the same as he really doesn’t look much bigger.

Now Picture 2 and 3 both from the same website both claiming 20 plus pounds of muscle both not so true. The first picture there is definitely some muscle gain but not much so in that short amount of time we have an example of newbie results. Now for the dramatic transformation flex and use natural light which gives more shadows making someone look more ripped. The second picture claimed even more gains and from the look didn’t gain much at all main difference is the lighting and probably a pump from just working out. Putting lighting almost directly over head brings more shadows and makes someone look more ripped and with that I leave you this viral video from the past week or so.

Now a lot of people have already saw this video and it just shows don’t always believe what you see from those ads.

The next two transformations are legit and both impressive, but I’m going to break them down and help make them understandable as at first glance they’re pretty unbelievable.

Taylor Lautner bulking up for the twilight series.

First I want to say the kid worked his butt off and kudos to him. Secondly yes I have seen the movies and not by choice, all of my girlfriends friends were away at college when they were released, so I was the lucky guy that got drug to the theater which from the looks I wasn't the only one. Now back to the topic some people have been in disbelief of him gaining 30lbs from Twilight to New Moon. Personally I’m a believer and here’s why.

Fact 1 is age he was literally a kid when Twilight ended, 16 years old. Many16 year old males haven’t reached their full height and if you look back at the first Twilight to New Moon Lautner had definitely gotten taller my guess is he was somewhere around 5’8”-5”8.5”(possibly shorter) during twilight by comparing him to other cast members and some Google searches. More recently when compared and searched he’s listed at 5’10”(again possibly shorter). In growing 2 inches he would naturally gain weight. Fact 1 to remember.

Fact 2 Lautner has been interviewed as saying he began his training for New Moon the day shooting ended for Twilight, which was May 2, 2008. Filming for New Moon began in late March 2009. This gives him 46-47 weeks to put on weight. According to the Gaining Weight for Ranger School gaining mass and controlling for fat gain can be done and gaining 1-2lbs a week would keep BF% in check. By this he could have gained 46lbs in that amount of time. Again keeping his weight gain feasible.

Fact 3 Lautner had a personal trainer, nutritionist and every other resource a movie star would have at his disposal. With that he could easily push the limits as to what is possible physically.

Fact 4 While Lautner gained 30lbs the reality is it wasn’t all muscle. BF% is BF% From the looks of the before and after pictures his BF% was relatively the same possibly a hint more after his weight gain (the lighting helps). If he was 140lbs before and 170lbs after, I would guess he was somewhere around 8-9% BF. Gaining weight and keeping BF% the same would mean a gain of fat within the weight gain. This would mean he gained 25.9-27.6lbs of lean body mass.

Bringing it Together-Lets Review Fact 1-Age and Height growth Fact 2-46 weeks of training Fact 3-Maximum assistance with his goals Fact 4- His 30lbs wasn’t all muscle rough estimate of 25.9-27.6lbs of LBM. Also I would assume from his prior weight and muscle mass he had done almost no weight training.

Looking at all of the facts together shows a clear picture teenagers naturally put on muscle just from puberty natural growth, he had the “noob” effect of just starting lifting weights. With knowing you can gain at least a pound a week without putting on too much fat and having a personal trainer train him for 42 weeks there is no doubt in my mind he could have put on 30lbs when looking at all the factors.

Christian Bale going from the Machinist to Batman Begins

Now this one is the grand daddy of all weight gains in my opinion. How on earth did Christian Bale go from 121lbs at his lowest while filming the Machinist to Being Batman. Honestly this is the easiest explanation of it all. Muscle memory. It’s been claimed that he gained over 100lbs from one roll to the other and again I can believe it. Bale was in similar shape as Batman Begins in the movie prior to the machinist approximately weighting 185lbs.

Regaining muscle back to a prior mass gain is much easier than building new muscle, losing weight in such a way as he did for the machinist is easily gained back. This is one of the reasons people who crash diet never maintain the results they want. Bale reportedly got up to 230lbs but was actually too fat and Nolan requested he drop his BF% before shooting Batman Begins. So Bale's Batman physique actually comes down to muscle memory, nutrition and a personal trainer. 50 cent has also been seen doing similar things once he was done filming his movie which he dropped a ton of weight. He seemingly bulked back up in what seemed to be a shorter time than Bale.

My Own Personal Gains Broken Down

Now anyone reading this that has read my other post will know I’ve put on 24lbs in 3 1/2 months. And it’s true it was all natural and it did happen. I put on 24lbs in about 15 weeks and keep my BF% about the same. Using the same methods of analysis that I did for the other gains above here are some facts. My BF% was somewhere between 8-10% let’s just say 9%. 9% would put my lean body mass at around 161.98lbs on May 10th before I went into surgery. My starting weight in January was 154lbs @ 9% would give me a LBM of 140.14lbs. That is a gain of 21.84lbs of LBM. Seems like a crazy amount in that time, but if you factor in muscle memory which In years prior I had weighed up to 168lbs with a BF% around 7% which puts my lean body mass at 156.24lbs. This shows I gained 5.74lbs of LBM during that time of training which is still a good amount. At that rate it would be equivalent to gaining 19.90lbs of LBM a year which is a very substantial amount for a "noob". Other factors to include are I was 19 years old still young and had never weight trained seriously for two years consistently, which can be suggested as the “noob” time frame. With keeping that in mind it is reasonable for me to gain that amount of weight I also have the stretch marks to prove it. I'm currently at 174lbs at around 10% BF. This puts my current LBM at around 156.6lbs, so I've actually lost LBM.

Now what does this mean for my future? I’m going to be 23 this year, so chances are any natural muscle growth brought on by my natural growth have long already passed as I’ve been 5’10" since my junior year of high school at 16. I still haven’t trained consistently for 2 years. I really haven’t seen any major gains more of maintaining what I already have had the last 2 years because my workouts have been so inconsistent with school, injuries and everything else life has thrown at me. I would estimate that I could possibly gain anywhere from 15-20lbs of LBM in one year. Which If I gained 20lbs on LBM at my current BF% on top of my highest total LBM I could weigh as much as 202.2lbs @ around 10% BF (a gain of almost 30lbs). That would be my maximum possible total gains. I would need great nutrition, sleep and workouts for a whole year to see that type of gains and even then I may not be able to. 20lbs is my guess as to what is just the absolute best results I could achieve realistically and naturally at my age and experience in one year’s time. With that I said some people are lucky with great genetics could possibly gain even more.

So my current goals are as such to weigh 185lbs @ the same BF% (around 10%) by May 12, 2012. That is about 11lbs in 13 weeks and very attainable as we have seen by my analysis. The Next two weeks I’ll look to drop my BF% to about 7% which would put me at about 180lbs and a LBM of 167.4lbs. This would be an additional of 4.52lbs to my last highest LBM which was prior to surgery. If every comes together I should be able to exceed my goal and reach between 185-190lbs, which would put my LBM between 167.4-171. That would put best case scenario by Memorial Day I would weigh about 183lbs @ 7% BF.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

One reason was to provide free information to people. I am continually learning new methods and techniques that help me reach my overall fitness goals, but when I first started trying to find this information it was a tough find, it took me years of research and a college class on weight training to find the necessary information that helped me gain weight.

The second reason was to keep myself motivated. I plan on updating this blog more often and holding myself accountable. I’ve used forums mostly as an online tool to keep me motivated and it has worked great. Forums though are a very limited audience and while it held me accountable it didn’t do much to help others reach their goals.

With that I plan to update my blog more often and hopefully make my methods and my successes and failures more available so those looking to reach their goals in fitness have an easy to understand free resource.

Since my Last Post and FUTURE

I’ve still been hovering around the 173-174lbs mark. I’m still looking to reach my goal of around 185lbs. Unfortunately 2011 wasn’t the most kind year to my body as I’ve already blogged about me dislocating my toe and severely spraining my ankle. I had another serious injury in the summer of 2011. As my ankle began feeling better I suited up to play baseball. No later than the second pitch I saw all season I was hit by a pitch in my hand and broke the second metacarpal on my left hand. The first three metacarpals are fairly serious breaks because they usually need a plate to heal correctly and being the biggest bones in the hand takes the longest to heal. So that ended my baseball season. I continued to do what I could to stay fit including core and upper body exercises that didn’t need grip.

My workouts though faltered and when I was back able to get them going my car decided to stop working, so for almost a month I was without a car. I did what I could before I bought my new car. (Which I love BTW 2012 Hyundai Veloster) So it took me all the way until late November to start getting back in the gym regularly. With all that time off and injuries my muscles had atrophied quite a bit. Late January is when I reached my pre injury strength with upper body. I’m still working on my legs as the ankle still isn’t 100% (probably 85-95% depending on day).

My goal is to try to gain some weight, who would have guessed? I still want to get to 185lbs. As of today there is about 15 weeks until Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. If I gain 1-3lbs a week for the next 12 weeks would put me right at my goal. The next three weeks I would switch my nutrition somewhat and try to drop about 5 lbs to be at 180lbs. The goal would be to drop my body fat percentage from around 10% to 7%. Now this will be my biggest challenge in fitness yet as my lean body mass is 155.7lbs. To get to 180lbs with 7% body fat my lean body mass would be around 167.4lbs. That is a lot of muscle. My next post will be all about expectations and why I believe I can achieve that goal.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Since my last post I continued to see gains in strength and post new personal best. My squat got up to 335lbs for 8 reps.. My DB Bench and Flat bench also improved I reached a personal best in March of 6 reps @ 90lbs on the DB Bench press as well as 235lbs for 7 reps on the barbell bench press. My gains have been similar in other areas as well. I am very happy with all my gains especially the strength as I only weighed between 170-175 at the time

The Bad and the Ugly

As the college semester came to a close as per usual my workouts began to dwindle as I dealt with all the school work I had to complete. After April 8th my workouts were down to about one a week a few weeks in there I got in two but basically only one. Recently towards the end of May they picked up some. And this week I have the most planned, but with a hurt ankle I haven’t done legs since April 28th (40 days) and it doesn’t look like until at least another week I’ll be back on track to start legs again, because…

On Mother’s Day (May 8th) I was playing in a rough touch football league. I was having a great game making some great plays until during one of those plays I destroyed my ankle. There was a jump ball and I jumped over the d-back and literally took the ball out of his hands, but when we both came down he fell into my legs and I landed directly on my ankle severely spraining it. I did all of the necessary protocol for ankle healing RICE and some physical rehabilitation exercise on my own, but there wasn’t much progress three weeks later. I visited my doctor and had my knee (2 year anniversary of surgery May 14th) and ankle checked out again. Knee was doing great as usual, but the ankle for whatever reason the swelling just won’t go down. So today over 4 weeks since the injury I’m still working to get my range of motion back as well as keep the swelling down. At 6 weeks from the date of injury I go back and see the doctor and if the problem persists I’ll be getting a cortisone shot to get the inflammation down. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that as I’m working hard daily to stretch and have began a more intensive physical therapy program to help it along.

I’m also missing baseball games with this injury, which is frustrating, but just have to stay positive and work to get it better.

Not all is bad, as I have mentioned before I have had great progress in strength which I am very happy about. I’m looking into switching gyms to LA fitness which has many amenities my gym doesn’t have. As long as my ankle is recovering I’m going to continue working on my upper body strength. Once I return to baseball I’m going to work on more endurance and maintaining strength not so much of trying to gain as being sore will be counterproductive while on the diamond. So, hopefully in a week or so I’ll be switching to 2 full body sessions a week, one arm session, 2-3 running/agility/balance sessions and adding some distance running to my routines.

On another note I graduated from college, which is exciting, relieving and rewarding all at the same time. Takes a big weight off my shoulders and as per my health and fitness allows me to stay consistent for a while.

The last time I weighed myself a few weeks ago I was 175lbs. I’d like to get to stay around here for the rest of the summer and then try to get to 180 or 185 in the fall and stay there for a while.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

While I've had some great progress in the strength department and my speed seems to be back, I feel I've been neglecting my core. I've been only getting maybe one core workout a week. For myself and my workout philosophy I am being a major slacker. I firmly believe to build a better athelete, he/she needs to build a better core. Prior to my surgery I was doing core workouts 3 times a week, going through my circuits 3 times with extra weight. Today I can only run through my circuits twice with only body weight, which is disapointing by comparison. My goal for April is to do a core workout every other day or at most every two days.

I currently have four different core workouts that I created that I'm going to cycle through. I also will use P90X Ab Ripper X as well as a physioball core workout from the American Parkour (APK ) website. I personally believe that using the most diverse exercises will build the strongest core. Reason being that if your in an athletic situation your core does so many different movements that are completely unpredictable. By using one core workout or limiting your workouts only to certain core exercises your building strength and endurance for that one particular type of move, while your core needs to be strong in a variety of differents situations and movements. By combing diverse core movements your training for those unpredictable movements you will encounter during athletic activity.

My month of April my be core focused but I want to mention "spot training". Spot training is targeting an area of the body to reduce the amount of fat in that area. The problem is science has disproven this method. It doesn't work, especially in the abdomen area. The body burns fat from certain areas first and lastly in the abdomen, so body fat percentage is purely a nutritional and caloric issue. There for trying to do crunches or any other ab/core exercise to reduce fat on the abdomen is a feeble attempt to get that six pack. But! It will help by building the core. If you build those muscles and they grow they will "pop" more making then more defined with a higher body fat percentage. This is a weight gain blog but once you hit your goal weight you'll likely have some body fat you'll want to get rid of, its just part of the process. Sadly to intake the calories to gain weight the body will store fat, but as long as you keep you caloric intake within reason, gaining no more than two or three pounds a week, it shouldn't be a big issue.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Currently I'm weighing in at 174.2 (as of 3/19/2011) so I haven't made any big gains in the weight department, but in the strength department I'm doing work. It is a little puzzling though as my diet is the worst it has been in over two years and I'm in taking about 3400 calories a day. I'm almost always eating crap fast food, including fries which I don't normally do. If I'm looking to gain some weight I need to clean up my diet and in take probably around 3800-4000 calories to gain some serious weight. That is a challenge in it's self. It is almost impossible as any American knows to eat healthy, unless you prepare every meal. The problem is working about 20hrs (or more) and having 19 (plus 10 hours plus of school work)credits takes away that option for me. I'll have to make due with that I can until the semester is over.

The good news is I've set new personal best in almost everything.Here are the recent new personal best since the beginning of March;

I disregard the 4.16 I ran on 3/20/2010 because nothing even broke a 4.6, but it was my best run of the day. I felt the fastest had the best start and it was definitely my fastest run of the day just the time is off. Now my friend that times me swears buy it but it just doesn't add up.

As for my recent times it is great to see much improvement from the same time last year. It looks like I have all of my speed back. I believe I've had it (at least most) back because my father told me last summer he thought I looked the fastest I ever had playing baseball. Which I can't argue as I went 21 for 21(3 running for the catcher and 2 went unrecorded except by me) with stolen bases in 27 games of my regular season in baseball. The first five games I didn't steal a base because I was still getting used to being on the field (first time since knee surgery), so I did all that damage in 22 games.

I'm going to be taking some measurements in my standing broad jump, Long jump, vertical jump, 60 yard dash, hundred meter dash and 200m dash. as well as some NFL combine events such as the 20 and 60 yard shuttle run and the 3 cone drill.

Some Goals I have right now for strength training is really to get as close to 10 reps at 225lbs on the bench press as possible. Weight Wise I'm hoping to be about 180lbs by the end of April.

At the end of April I'm going to be switching my workouts from more of strength training to more speed and explosiveness training. My weight workouts will focus more on endurance. Some goals I have for my endurance work,

20 reps at 105% of my BW on the Bench Press (about 185lbs)20 reps at 150% of my body weight with the Squat (About 260lbs)30 reps of Pullups 50 reps of Inverted Rows 20 reps of the Shoulder Press at about 75% of my Body Weight ( about 135lbs)

With the endurance work I'll be mixing in heavy weights as well and look to maintain my body weight while dropping my body fat percentage.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Well, I've had some good things happen to me, some bad ones and uh some down right ugly things.

The Good

Lets start with the good things. My squat has been increasing rapidly, which is awesome. I got 285lbs for 9 reps two leg workouts ago. My personal best was 295lbs for 6 reps way back in April of 2009 (pre knee surgery). Other personal best I've broken are the dumbbell flat benchmark press; I got 7, 7, and 6 reps @ 85lb dumbbells in each hand last chest day. Another two personal bests I've broken are weighted pull ups and lat pull downs: 9 reps @ an extra 45lbs ans 12 reps @ 225lbs respectively. So I am extremely happy with my progress in the strength area. The new PR's in the DB bench and pull downs/ups tell me tell me my shoulders are doing well. They are the one part of my body that worries me at times (no not even my ACL surgically repaired knee worries me more). Hopefully I continue to move a long and get stronger in every area.

The Bad and the Ugly

So two Sundays ago I dislocated my second digit toe on my right foot. Yes it was ugly and the bad was I took about a week off from lifting with my legs which set me back a tad. I also only got one upper body session in that week. For one measly toe I screwed up a whole week's worth of workouts. It happened when I was doing self defense training against an opponent armed with a long weapon, such as a stick or a bat. Being that I train self defense in real speed I'm surprised worse hasn't happened. But, anyway my partner tried to swing overhand and I moved out of the way, he tried to recover, spin and strike again which was a perfect time to close the distance and disarm him. The problem was he spun, I closed the distance and his foot met my toe in that perfect way to pop that sucker out real good.

But...Back to the Good

Last Friday I met with the doc who performed the surgery on my knee piece to have that and the toe checked out. The toe was healing nicely. After examining both the toe and knee he cleared me 100% for both. Which was awesome. Now I'm free from the chains of wearing that fugly annoying brace and I only had a downtime of 4 days for my toe.

So Sunday I had another self defense/martial arts training session that lasted two and half hours. This week set some personal best as well. One PR I forgot to mention was wide weighted dips I managed to get 10 reps with an extra 60lbs.

Some future plans are Saturday a nice long martial arts seminar covering brazilian jui jut su, hapkido, and board breaking and Sunday is looking like a sprint/agility workout as well as an arm weight training day.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Today I weighed in at 173.5. I didn't expect that at all. My eating and workouts have been a little sporadic with the adjustment to the new semester. I did switch back to my original workouts, we got 17 inches of snow last week and it won't be going away for a while so planning on sticking with these workouts until probably April now. If I'm lucky I'll be able to get out and run.

The main thing I'm worried about right now is that I feel like I'm neglecting my core. I have been doing my core workouts but they've been very sporadic. I'm a firm believer the better the core the better the athlete. I really want to Foucault on it because at the moment I can barely get through a circuit twice when prior to my knee surgery I could run through the circuit three times with extra weight for every exercise. I wanna get back to that level but it will take some time and a lot of hard work.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

So far so good with my workouts. Switching to the full body workouts has been tough, but I enjoy it. I'm weighing in at 166lbs even and I'm still sticking to my goal of 1-2lbs a week. So I'm expecting to get to my goal of between 185-190 sometime around the end if April or in May. It all depends if I can stay consistent.

Something that may hurt the likelyhood of that happening is the fact that I'm starting my last semester of college. I've pretty much wrapped up all of the classes I have to take so I'm trying to take it somewhat easy in my last semester, but only time will tell if that stands true. I say this because since I've started really focusing on working out my workout consistency really depended on how much school work I have. School and work are neccessities and come first so the main reason as to why my weight has been fluctuating so much is because of the extra time I have to put in with school.

Back to the workouts. I've switched to the full body workouts to really focus on sprints , plyometrics and balance training but I haven't been able to do one workout involving them because of the weather. Where I live we have had snow on the ground since the day after Christmas. Right now I don't have access to an indoor facility in which I can get those workouts done. Today we got another small storm that isn't helping. The forecast for this week also happens to be cloudy and high temperatures at the highest of around 30° all week, so that isn't helping. I'm considering switching back to my weight gain workouts until March and then switch back to full body and running.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Well its been a while since I posted. Hell, Its been a while since I worked out. Yesterday was the first day I was in the gym since November 15th. Since then I've totally revamped my entire workout approach. Originally my workouts were targeted for certain muscle groups, whether it be chest, back and shoulders,arms, or legs. Though a lot of the time I would combine workouts to do super sets or even circuits. These workouts were created to build size and strength.

My big change comes in the form of my overall goals and philosophy. For the last two years my workouts were geared towards gaining mass and strength. Now I'm focusing on speed, quickness, balance and stability. While I had done workouts that would fall within those categories, they weren't my main focus.

From now until March I'm doing full body weight training sessions. I'm still working on the exact schedule, but right now I'm looking at three weight training workouts a week with three plyometric or gymnastic/tricking workouts.

I'm looking to really work on my overall athletic ability focusing on explosive speed and quickness, climbing, jumping and flipping. I'm going to cut back a little on the weight training because of these goals.

In the next few days ill have my updated workouts and schedule. In mid March I plan on switching back to my "bulking up" workouts until May. In May I plan on switching back to my full body workouts to get ready for summer.

Hopefully my new workouts can help anyone reading this reach their goals. Just be warned they are not for the faint of heart.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Bad news- My workouts and eating habits declined significantly from about midterm this passed semester, leading to my overall weight to decrease to 170.4 lbs (as of May 7, 2010) down from about 180lbs. My bench press has also decreased with this loss of weight, luckily not much. I was crazy swamped with school work.

Good News- I kept most of my strength in all other aspects if not improved it(The first muscle to start to atrophy is normally your chest). The knee is doing incredibly well as I am doing back and front flips again. I have one final left and I’m free from the bonds of school work until the fall semester. This gives me a chance to get back on track with my work out program and nutrition.

I have decided to go with a well know workout program for most of the summer, The P90X. I am perfectly happy with my own program and it has worked wonders for me and was continuing to do so up until mid point of the semester when I couldn’t keep up with it. Tony Horton’s program fell into my lap late in the semester and I’ve decided to give it a try.

The P90X basically spoon feeds you everything about your goals and makes it easy to follow. I’m still going to be focused on gaining weight, especially since I have lost almost 10lbs since mid semester.

I’m using resistance bands for the work outs no dumbbells. I’ve only spent about $54 on equipment for the program and I have almost everything I need. I just plan on buying a weight vest for pull-ups, pushups, etc.

Obviously I’m not doing the program to lose weight. I’m doing it increase strength stamina, looks (it is summer time) and mostly try to get back to the athletic ability I had pre ACL tear. Tony Horton’s P90X claims to do all that, so here I am starting Monday May 10th. I’ll finish the program August 7th.

I plan on continuing this blog but also another one chronicle my P90X experience and also review it from an athlete’s point of view.

Here are my P90X pre test results;

MAX Pull ups- 20 reps

MAX Pushups- 52 reps

Toe touch- +6.5 inches (passed my feet)

MAX Time Wall Sit- 1 minute 20 seconds

Seated Bicep Curls 30lbs- 26 reps

MAX In and Outs - 95 Reps (and ab exercise)

Vertical Leap- 33.5 inches

40 yard Sprint time- 4.60

I’m fairly happy with the results of my pre test. 20 reps of pull ups is my personal best ever. I’m content with my other results, beside the wall sit I expected a better time, but hey that’s why I’m starting the program.

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About Me

My name is Rob and I'm from philly. I've been an athelete my whole life and continue to play baseball and try to keep my fitness at the highest level possible. I'm a college student and I have a daughter, girlfriend and a part time job. I'm incredibly busy, but I find the time to work out. I'm an extremely dedicated person and I love to push my physical limits.